#472

Hey, everyone, how are you? I’ve had a bit on my mind lately, but today I actually remembered to blog. I was doing some paper mache after being inspired by YouTube. I started by covering a polystyrene ball for a later project, and it developed into coveing a lightbulb, a small container, and creating a vase for fake flowers out of card.

Here, it’s upsidedown.

It wasn’t a good idea to start a messy project so close to a house inspection, but I was inspired, and couldn’t resist. To be fair, I have a few messier projects in mind, so this was fairly safe on the list.

I try to keep you guys up to date… But no promises, heh.

#292

Today’s size brought to you by the letter: pencil.
Gosh, I’m tired…
This is one of the snowballs that I showed you guys the other day. A couple more of the layers of stuffing fluff, and it became awkward to hold. So, I decided to stop growing it, and cover it with some super cute fabric, instead. I made this step into another experiment. Instead of cutting nice, measured and symmetrical pattern pieces in fabric, I took the fabric, wrapped it around, pinned roughly, and cut a rectangle shape. From here, instead of focussing on making it neat, I just made sure the fabric was firm and secured with an over stitch in an organic line branching down the sides of the ball. This kind of gives it a Frankenstein feel, showing all the stitches and all, but the fabric is snug, and feels nice. I could have done a nice mattress stitch, hiding all the thread, but I just wanted to get it done quickly before I lost interest
Really need to start cleaning for inspection again, as it looks like Santa’s elves used my house as a secondary crafting site. At least I can get away with drawing and needle felting being left out with little mess.

#287

Only slightly less creepy looking, and semi-undergarmented.
I worked on a few things today, after waking up by watching some YouTube videos. I found a girl’s channel, named Chezlin, that does different kinds of arts and crafts, a lot like me. She had a video on needle felted cat toys. Watch it here, and check out her other videos. There’s links to her blog and other sites in the description on the video.
In the cat toy video, one of the toys had bells in it. I thought it was a good idea, but with all the padding, it might soundproof them. So, I made a ball for my own cats, making a rattle, using two bottle caps and a soda tab. Put the tab in the middle of the two caps, and tape it all up securely. You can use other things to do this, such as a coin, rice or some beads. You could replace the bottle caps with little toy eggs from vending machines, or little paint containers or film canisters. Anything that has room for the inner object to move, and make noise when they hit together, but small enough to be a nice light ball when covered in wool. The sound will be muffled slightly, but remember if your cat wants to play at two in the morning, you might not want it to be too loud. Cats have super hearing anyway, so a subtle sound is fine.
Once you have your rattle taped up, just wrap in wool, and felt with a needle, avoiding poking straight into the rattle. Since my rattle was coin shaped, I had to build up more on the flat sides, to make the shape more ball like. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it’s good if it can roll. I didn’t compact it a great deal, but it rolls nicely, and bounces quite well.
It was one project they stole that they were allowed.

#273

It’s a ball!
Not much to report, today. I tried to see how nice I could get the felting, but it’s all uneven by feel. It looks ok, except where the white of the under stuffing peeks through, but I think that means I just need to add more red. I used the red wool roving for this, to see how it felt (heh heh heh.) I think it will take some practice, so I might use the felt sheeting after all, as it turns out more even with less effort.
I also cut up some layering paper with the bright new paper pack that I bought. This means I made random rectangular shapes that will fit on a card, so I can mix and match and get ideas without having to cut the corner off a large sheet. Useful for throwing together lots of cards, or making cards in a hurry. To further aid this issue, I’ve learnt that some crafter’s have a box of stamped images that they colour when they’re not so busy, and they have a box full of pre-stamped, and pre-coloured images ready to be matched with pre-cut layers and pre-printed sentiments to put on their pre-folded cards.
Organisation is awesome. If I’ll only ever get around to it.

#269

I wanted to try something for my needle felted doll, so I tried out the technique by making a small ball.
I tried making a larger ball, but I didn’t do it right, and had to start smaller. I made a base ball with polyester filling, then raided my felt sheet scraps and needle felted them on. It worked out well, and the heart shape hole was actually a coincidence, left after piecing randomly, so I filled it in in pink. I definitely need to invest in a tool, so I can use more than one or two needles. It takes such a long time. It took me two and a half to make this and the mistake ball. It’s a bit tough to pierce the flat felt, as it’s already tightly compacted, but with a bit of work, it all lays nice and flat. This will come in handy when applying to the doll. I’ll probably felt the skin right on, then make removable clothing. Years of dressing barbie dolls should help with that part.

#264

Today, I had some ideas about needle felting
Before I began, I had to create a needle proof glove, that I had seen online, and since I had used the right hand of these gloves for a tablet glove, it worked out perfectly, as I needed a left hand glove. Basically all you do is put your hand in a position to hold the wool in, and wrap your index finger and thumb in duct tape. It works a dream! No tetanus, although it did get a bit sweaty and cramped up due to not being able to move the fingers much, but no tetanus.
The first idea involved felt dolls, and I was thinking about covering obvious seams by needle felting a piece of matching felt over it. Then I thought of sculpting the felt head after it’s stuffed. Then I thought (all in a short amount of time) that I could try felting toy stuffing, as it’s cheap enough to practice on, and I could make the bulk of the item in that, and cover in the expensive/coloured wool or felt. It worked just as well as the wool, and with the glove it all came together very easily. I wanted to see how tight I could get the ball by just felting. I didn’t finish, but there was quite a large handful of stuffing when I began. This could possibly make a nice centre for a play ball for kids. Since toy stuffing is generally kid friendly, and covering with fabric shouldn’t be too hard, also you can make it larger and softer for babies, or harder for older kids and pets.

Day #168

Busy sewing day, today. I almost finished a belt, did a fair bit of a bag, half made a pincushion and half heartedly made a cat ball.
The reason I couldn’t finish the belt was that I started using the eyelets that I had gotten the other day with my eyelet setter, but they didn’t come with washers, they were gold instead of silver to match the buckle, and they were too small for the buckle to fit into. So that project has to wait to be finished.
Next, I began making my bag. I’m using instructions for a bag, but created my own pattern from the pictures, as I wanted mine bigger, and couldn’t print out the pattern. Essentially it was a square with rounded corners, so easy to reproduce in the size I wanted. I can’t find my iron from when we moved, but i have to find it to flatten the strap.
As for the pincushion, the glue is currently drying, and is functional for the moment, just needs some decorating with some paint and ribbon. It’s actually a box, so I might clean up the inside edges, and I can keep a miniature sewing kit with small scissors and thread in it.
As for the cat toy, I felt like making something, and couldn’t think of anything else. It was quick and cats don’t care if they can see the stitching.

Day #90

Its a ball! Its supposed to be a head, but at least I finally managed to make a nice round shape. Shows what happens when I follow a pattern!
I found this awesomely cute wool (I’m a sucker for variegated wool) and needed to make something with it. I started a scarf, but got bored quickly so its a bookmark or something…I put if on my cat as a saddle. She was not as amused as I was.
So I began an arigurumi- cute crochet creature. I did put the face on but it looks a bit weird. I’ve never been good at satin stitching noses, and it doesn’t look very happy. I might have to make the rest before it looks adorable. Even adding some ears may help. I’m not great at crochet, I much prefer knitting, but it’s harder on my hands. 😦
At least it’ll be winter soon, so I can get out my blanket projects to work on :D.

Day #78

It’s a……. ball?
My cats really love a ball I made out of felt, so I wanted to make them another one. Everything is hectic from moving house, and I couldn’t get to my felt. I was going to make one out of fabric but it might fray too much. Then I decided to crochet something, since I had access to my wool. Then I couldn’t find my crochet hooks… I found one attached to a project and decided to use that. Next to find a pattern… nahhh.
I knew how to increase and decrease on a very basic level, so I began forming a shape. The cats won’t know what a sphere is.
I got near the end, a good time to stuff… if I knew where my stuffing was stashed. After a bit of consideration, I came up with cutting up sturdy plastic bags and stuffing it. It makes a crinkly noise, so I crudely shut the end and added a tail for added funness.

Hope they like it 😛